


Restoration

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Carthak, Destruction, Duty, Gen, Loss, Loyalty, Mercy - Freeform, Order, Peace, Politics, Rebuilding, Restoration, power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 01:39:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14438727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Varice and Kaddar are determined to restore Carthak. Set after Emperor Mage.





	Restoration

**Author's Note:**

> Tammy said in a recent AMA on reddit that Varice served as Kaddar's hostess as she had Ozorne's, so I was inspired to write this story. Hope you enjoy it!

Restoration

Once—only days ago but it seemed like centuries had elapsed since the palace was smashed to a shell of its former grandeur, its bright tile mosaics broken to dull dust, its columns collapsed by an army of animated fossils that should have remained dead—it wouldn’t have been unusual for Varice to be summoned to a private audience before her emperor, but that had been under a different emperor. One who was as much a friend to her as he was a tyrant to Carthak. 

Varice had known Ozorne too well, though she had sometimes pretended that she hadn’t—hiding her eyes from the darkness in him as if that could transform it to light—but his nephew, the new Emperor Kaddar, was much more of a stranger to her. During Ozorne’s reign, it had been imprudent and impolitic to be seen as too friendly with his heirs, who had the habit of dying under dubious circumstances after provoking his paranoia or stirring his jealousy. In Carthak, betting on the weak gladiator at the coliseum or the slow horse at the chariot races could be costly in gold and jewels, but gambling on the wrong heir could be deadly. 

Varice had never gambled on an Emperor Kaddar or even a Prince Kaddar who survived his seventeenth birthday. There had never been any malice behind the thought, just a cool understanding of a drama she had watched too many times. 

Kneeling before the throne of an emperor she had never expected to be crowned with her silk gown offering scant protection from the hard and cold marble floor, she now wished she had done more to cultivate a warm relationship with Emperor Kaddar when he had been a prince pitied or overlooked by everyone. She would have distinguished herself more from the pack of hyenas that was the court if she had, but then she must have captured Emperor Kaddar’s attention however unwittingly if he had summoned her to a private meeting.

“Lady Varice, you were my uncle’s hostess.” Emperor Kaddar’s stare sliced into Varice as an accusing knife. Varice had the sensation of no longer being a hyena but a zebra slower than her herd hunted by a proud lion though Lindhall Reed had once told her that it was the lionesses who did the killing while the lions lounged in the sun. Perhaps the emperor’s mother, the ever shrewd Princess Fazia, was lurking in the shadows, poised to strike like a coiled cobra at Varice’s bare throat. It was whispered—behind fans and hands as all frank government gossip and political commentary in Carthak was—that the emperor listed to his mother more than any other advisor. Varice supposed he had reason to when her instincts, attuned to any danger as Ozorne’s had been, had allowed him to live where other heirs had died. “You advised my uncle.” 

That, she knew, wouldn’t be a point in her favor. The nobles who had been closest to Ozorne had been beheaded after cursory trials before jeering crowds if they hadn’t fled to their estates to rally their legions in resistance. Maybe Varice should have fled with them but her bones had been too tired for running nonetheless fighting, which had always been anathema to her need for pleasant surroundings, and the fleeing nobles promised nothing if not bloody battles. Her life had been with Ozorne and Arram, and she had lost both to each other. Her whole purpose had been to make her sliver of the chaotic, ugly world peaceful and beautiful, but the tranquility and majesty of her palace had been destroyed in the Wild Mage’s rampage. 

Her veins burning with the memory of everything she had worked to make lovely reduced to rubble, Varice might have pleaded with the imperious Emperor Kaddar to pursue diplomatic channels of bringing the Wild Mage to justice for the havoc she had inflicted on the palace if she hadn’t recalled before a word could leave her desert dry lips that Emperor Kaddar had developed a fondness for the Wild Mage when taking her on tours of the city and presumably felt he owed her a debt for creating the mayhem that had propelled him to power. 

“Your Imperial Majesty”—Varice still had to adjust to addressing anyone except Ozorne in such exalted terms but she was grateful that no wobble, which might be interpreted as a sign of treachery in this era of upheaval, entered her serene tone—“as hostess I used my skills to the best of my humble abilities to promote peace for the empire. I was nothing more or less than a faithful servant to Carthak.” 

She had done her duty, Varice believed in her heart, but she wouldn’t be the first mage in Carthak to be stabbed in the chest for doing nothing more and nothing less than her duty. Carthak could be as cruel to its mages as it was to its slaves. The mages were just locked in prettier cages of their own creation that they never dared and never wanted to escape. 

“I remember you would give me subtle warning when I made a stray comment that might have been construed as critical of my uncle.” Emperor Kaddar’s forehead furrowed as he studied her as if she were a plant he was classifying, and she wondered if those small moments of fleeting generosity would dispose him to be merciful to her now. “It is my belief that you tried to encourage the best motivations in my uncle. It is not your fault if he failed to heed your good counsel, and none, my lady, may question that you completed your duties with grace, beauty, and charm that made you a credit to our empire. That is not a crime.” 

“Your Imperial Majesty is benevolent and merciful to those who desire only to serve Carthak.” Varice glanced up at Emperor Kaddar through eyelashes heavy and thick with mascara that represented a risk with her appearance since it would smear if she cried and saw that the elaborate regalia and formal face paint of Carthak’s new emperor couldn’t conceal the weariness ruling had etched into creases on his cheeks and black holes under his eyes. 

“I trust, Lady Varice, that you will continue to serve Carthak as my hostess, welcoming my visitors and facilitating peace in my empire through your contributions to our diplomatic efforts.” There was a soft snap to Emperor Kaddar’s voice that caused Varice to contemplate if she had stepped into a careful trap he had laid. 

Varice could no more refuse Emperor Kaddar without arousing suspicion of treason than she could have the Emperor Ozorne, so she inclined her head in gracious acceptance of an offer that was truly a command. “It would be an honor, Your Imperial Majesty.” 

“Then together we will restore peace and order to Carthak.” Emperor Kaddar lifted Varice’s fingers to his lips, and heart swelling like the River Zekoi in a flood, Varice felt a surge of the magnetism that had once drawn her inexorably to his uncle as light attracted a hapless insect to its doom. “We will rebuild together. We will not leave Carthak in ruins.”


End file.
